Housing Benefit – Parliamentary Written Answer

Richard Fuller: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether his Department has received information that local authorities have reduced rents for their housing stock as a means of avoiding the housing benefit cap; if his Department will commission research into this issue; and if it will take steps to enforce adherence by local authorities to the housing benefit cap.

Mr Prisk: The housing benefit cap was introduced to ensure that claimants were not able to live in properties beyond the means of those not on benefit. The housing benefit cap only affects claimants living in the private rented sector and therefore tenants of local authority owned housing stock are not affected.  My Department, with the Department for Work and Pensions, is funding research into the impact of the local housing allowance changes on private rented sector tenants, landlords and local authorities. The housing benefit cap is one of the changes to the local housing allowance regime. An initial report was published on 14 June and can be found on the DWP website. There will be an interim early next year and the final report later in 2013.  The most recent official statistics published by the Valuation Office Agency in August 2012 show that median private sector rents across England rose by 0.9% in the year to June 2012, compared to a rise in RPI inflation of 2.8% over the same period. Rents have thus fallen in real terms, although there are local variations.